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Hey Gamers! Part 1 is above, and I’m not going to bother with much of an intro.
Playtest Cards F – M
In Part 1, I covered cards starting from A to E. Next up, F through M!
This seems not only possible in real Magic, I’d say it’s likely. It’s very playable. I expect that this and the other land cards in this set are here to stoke players on the possibility of them being real, and then, Magically, they will be. Fetch your wallet!
I went looking at the other Licid cards in Magic, and they’re all pretty much like this. Flanking is nowhere near as convoluted as Regenerate, and that’s on Nurturing Licid. All this to say that this could easily be a real card, and I’m not sure why it’s being done in playtest. It’s also not a good card. So… filler? The Licid they never printed, and never will because Licids never made it? This is chaff, and I’m disappointed by that.
What’s the reference here? I don’t get it. Please tell me in the comments. Is it One Piece?
As a card, this is pretty bad. I have a low opinion of Morph and friends in general, so this isn’t winning points with me. Negamorph is both playable and possible in real Magic, but I’d really rather not see it ever.
Shuffling useless cards into an opponent’s deck is something you might see in a deckbuilding game, but not a TCG. The obvious issue is getting the Gunk tokens looking like cards in your opponent’s deck. I guess you need a fairly large amount of similar sleeves.
On the kitchen table, yeah, this is doable. In your Cube, very doable. Out in the wild at your LGS, no. Like Conjure, though, WotC might find some sort of workaround in the future, or just allow a mix of sleeves.
As a possible Commander, Fludge seems fun. Flood opposing decks with Gunk. Many Commander decks are flush with tutor cards, so it’s not that oppressive, but opponents might hate the non-games that result. Opposing cycling decks will of course love you. It would be nice to have a unifier for Slugs, Oozes, Fungus and Mutants, and I hope WotC prints something else that boosts them.
Now we just need a card named Charnel to combo with. This seems like it could be a fun card, though the payoff is a bunch of 2/2s, so tough to imagine it being too good. I’m surprised the tokens aren’t like those produced by Monastery Mentor and have Prowess, because I think it would make this card much better.
Despite the ‘Storm Scale,’ a well-known list of problematic mechanics, we continue to get cards with Storm on them. Coststorm is probably less broken than basic Storm, but all Storm is pretty bonkers. Using ‘different mana values’ as the base of a mechanic has been done before, and while it can be confusing to some players, will probably be explored further. This is both playable and printable.
Another very playable land. While a Land with a mana cost seems convoluted, it’s not as convoluted as Dryad Arbor, and we cope with that card. The reminder text on the Glade isn’t elegant, but it does the job.
This seems like it’ll be a real card someday, although putting it into play with Crop Rotation or something that ignores ‘land drop(s) for turn’ seems very strong. This might even need a power reduction because of that and similar scenarios, and how this taps for GG.
While this could be a real card, my question is why? I mean, the name is a cute play on how the actual card Glimpse the Unthinkable sounds a lot like the naming templating WotC uses for Legends. But that’s about it for the utility of this card.
The issue isn’t the abilities, it’s the 4/5 body with no evasion and limited ways to get it some. Any of Menace, Trample, or Flying would make this a much different card. And I guess the abilities are kind of an issue too, because there’s enough boardwipes going around to render them useless. And it’s not clear, but you may not be able to ‘choose’ Glimpse as an attacker or blocker anyway. If I was a Magic Judge being asked about this, I’d pretend I couldn’t see the card at all.
This needs to stay as a playtest card, because this is likely a better Dryad Arbor, and that card can be pretty broken. One reason it’s broken is that Dryad Arbor can be put directly into play for G with Green Sun’s Zenith for early ramp. GSZ is banned in Modern partly because of this.
Gobland can’t do tricks with GSZ, but does have all sorts of synergy with other Goblins, including Goblin Recruiter, which might love being able to add a land to the Goblin pile. It also works well with Goblins that give Haste, and of course, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
Unlike Dryad Arbor, Gobland isn’t a colour, and that might make it even better in some ways. Is this really a 2/1 for 0 mana with no real downside? This is totally going to be in Modern Horizons 4, isn’t it? Yikes.
We already have a version of one of the abilities on this card in Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, and it’s a horrible experience to play against. That means we’re actually fairly likely to see Halving Season or something like it for real. Maybe with a name that’s less of a callback meme.
I hope they don’t ever print this, and I hope nobody has to play against this card. The notion of ‘Halving’ is a load of horse hockey, considering half of one is considered by the card to be an automatic zero. Incidentally, one is the (loneliest number) most likely number of counters or tokens you’ll be making at one time. That means that most of time, Halving Season is complete token and counter shutdown for the player’s opponents. Which anyone who has played against Vorinclex has already discovered.
Magic is a very mathy game. One of the mathiest ever. Doubles, Triples, and Halves create a lot of complications and problems, and the game would be better off without them.
Harmless, right? Drawing the top card of your deck and drawing the middle card of your deck are the same chance at the resources in your library. Let’s ask famous scientist Erwin Schrödinger, known for his theories on the possible contents of a box. What? He’s dead?!? I don’t believe it.
Anyway, forget the whole Jenga logic of taking things from the Top and Middle. You want to draw from the Bottom. Where you put cards after Scrying, or after casting a spell like Adventurous Impulse that puts cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
In that respect, this is probably not ever printable, and it becomes very playable in the right setups. It’s probably best that this never gets to play with Approach of the Second Sun, or even stuff like Mirri’s Guile or Scroll Rack. There’s also the fact that being successful while using this card is going to look like you’re cheating.
Hish is playable, printable, and a fun new way to build a Snake deck in Commander. As fun as poison counters get, I guess. Some opponents like that less than others.
This card is fairly cool, but isn’t really offering anything new. Daunt is sorta new, but just the keyword for an ability that’s been around for ages. The errata line is also sorta new, but half of it has already happened: Nagas are now Snakes. As long as Serpents aren’t Snakes, this won’t be a real card, but otherwise it’s very possible.
There’s a lot going on here. A new enchantment type in Realm, and a ‘new’ ability in Host. Plus an okay payoff. But this card is barely playable. Until Realms matter – and this is not an inspiring introduction – this card is an overcosted and less playable version of Fervor or Rising of the Day.
Yes it gives a good power boost, but giving a single creature Haste starts at 4 mana, and goes up by 2 for each subsequent creature. Want to win with an Alpha strike? Can you afford it? Haste is also an ability that rarely matters more than a single turn, so unless you’re really leveraging that +2/+0, there are better ways to get it. Like Fervor or Rising of the Day.
I’m also a little confused by the use of Host as a keyword, considering it’s already in use on cards as a Creature type. Sure they can change it if they ever want to print Immersturm Battlefield for real (it’s printable), but why even use Host as a placeholder?
This is a very cute card. From the capital V poking out on the top left, calling back to Vindicate, to the flavour text, and even that cringey two-word line of actual text. Cute! Like a boop on the nose!
But this is probably pretty playable. It’s totally printable for real Magic, even if it’s a little confusing. However, it might cause issues just because it’s a free spell. It triggers things like Prowess, and Storm, and as we now know, targeting can be Committing a Crime. It fills the graveyard for Delve, Delirium, etc. and goes in any Commander deck it wants.
Yes there are plenty of other free spells out there, but not that many Sorceries, and a big chunk of the free Sorceries are things like Living End that can’t be cast normally. Delirium concepts might want to take an extra hard look if this ever becomes a real card. Since Indicate doesn’t draw a card means it’s a little safer, but it’s not as cute as it first looks.
Very cool concept. Fun synergy implications. Fairly easy to understand, even if it’s a massive change for the game. Printable? Probably not, but you never know. Playable? Probably only Commander, but again, you never know. This would be fun to try out at least. The mana cost seems reasonable.
The biggest issue is figuring out where cards that are considered tokens go when they leave play. ‘Leaving the game entirely’ is the same as ‘Exile’ but they can’t be Exiled because things can come back from Exile, and tokens don’t go there. We need another zone. The Existence Has Ceased Zone. Get on it, WotC! And give us at least a couple of sets before adding a card that can be cast from EHCZ.
I don’t think this card was necessary, as it’s basically showing how Rebound is both a Magic term and a basketball term. That’s the joke. It could be a real Magic card too, and not terrible, as it makes a couple of 1/1s and a 2/3 for 3 mana. And hey, the WNBA is booming in popularity!
But this is a white Creature, making ‘white Athlete’ tokens, depicting a sport that’s especially notable for having to fight against racial privilege and segregation. White privilege. As the only depiction of Basketball in Magic, this is very cringe. The picture is not helping anything. This should have stayed on the drawing board, and someone should have known better.
Say it with me: ‘Value!’
Fun idea, mostly commemorating a much-loved archetype in the Modern format. An archetype that has been unceremoniously pushed out of the format by power creep, rending most of the cards on Jund ‘Em Out unplayable. Format all-star Tarmogoyf is now available as a token, and dropped hundreds of dollars in value from its peak. Liliana of the Veil also dropped dramatically in value, and is currently in Standard, where she is barely played.
So this card is a mixed bag of former glory, and Retrace should eventually get you enough Value to say the word out loud, but playing the right card in the right situation matters, and this is too random. To play it in paper you’ll need copies of all the cards listed, but if you played a Jund deck in Modern, well, you might just have them all sitting in a box somewhere. Ouch, Jund.
Hopefully they never print something like this, but the Tarmogoyf tokens from Modern Horizon 3 means all bets are off. The real chilling vision of the future is the reminder text that says there’s no room for reminder text.
Last time I covered Boulder Jockey, a playtest card with a D in the casting cost, meaning you must ‘pay’ a Land Drop to cast it. I found that a bit farfetched, but still doable. The L in Keeper of the Crown‘s cost is much more doable, and even compares well to Snow mana. It could very well be a mana symbol in the future, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it.
Other than the L, this card is pretty normal, and very printable. The only drawback is that getting a mana from a Legendary source isn’t that easy. There aren’t equivalents to basic Lands, 1-mana mana dorks, or mana rocks. Not enough anyway. Where Snow mana has specific equivalents, like Snow basics, Boreal Druid and even Arcum’s Astrolabe.
Legendary seems to matter now in every set. Something called Commander is apparently the reason. But a few sets are more ‘Legendary matters’ more than most, and this is something we could totally see down the road.
I’m not a fan of this card. Sure a 5/5 with Vigilance and Indestructible can be good. It’s a great blocker, and should usually be available. But with your opponent able to do things like cast their spells to change the math, it’s not reliable enough.
It’s still playable, though, and somewhat printable. I do think that the conditions for being ‘way behind’ are hardly that. A Death’s Shadow player might be 10 life down but still be way ahead. Anyone facing down three 0/1 Plant tokens is not way behind. 3 cards more in hand is of questionable advantage, and is only ahead if the board states are equal. I’d change it to 15 life, 5 creatures, and 5 cards in hand.
The same Phyrexians who lost to the Planeswalker superfriends are supposed to have compleated Kozilek? The Kozilek?
Hey Phyrexians, maybe you should have busted this bad boy out before Karn pulled off your Queen’s head. Eyeroll. Facepalm. Oh I get it, this is just a hypothetical mashup. Like a Sharktopus, but not that cool.
I do expect Phyrexianized Eldrazi in Magic at some point, however, and maybe something similar to this. While this seems way too strong, so does real card Ulamog, the Defiler. Annihinfect probably sucks less than actual Annihilator, but that’s among the worst mechanics ever, so ‘probably sucking less’ is not anywhere near ‘good.’
I don’t think this is printable the way it is, but it’s not very far off. It’s playable, but your opponents will hate you. I bet this is one of the most expensive playtest cards.
This could be a real card, and maybe the only reason is that we’re done with Eternalize. But it could easily be printed into a precon, Horizons set or something like that. Maybe Amonkhet Revisited. The card is not a powerhouse, but it’s quite playable. Any reason why it’s not a Desert?
Who knew there’d be nostalgia for Lich? This could be a real card, and it’s sort of playable, but we already have enough cards like this. Other Lich-style cards, like Nefarious Lich and Lich’s Mastery are barely ever played, and often just cause headaches for people who opened them as a pack rare.
I don’t know why you’d ever play this unless you’re planning to give it to another player with Donate or Harmless Offering. It might be one of the best things to do that with, but there’s a window for them to kill you in response. As they should.
If you’re considering playing this for yourself, know that you can draw 5 cards for less than 3BBB, and that’s the big payoff here. Sure you also stop 5 sources of lifeloss, but that could be 5 0/1 Kobold tokens entering with Impact Tremors in play. And you just lose to anything that destroys or bounces all Enchantments.
After a mostly forgettable debut in the first visit Kamigawa, Splice onto Arcane was dumped onto the Pile of Terrible Mechanics and left there for dead. But like many of Kamigawa’s flaws, it turned out it just needed some further development and effort put into it, and now we have a growing number of real, playable cards with Splice on them.
Part of the key was getting rid on ‘onto Arcane’ like Dampen Thought above. Splice currently works with Instants and Sorceries, but could easily be adapted to Creatures, Artifacts, Enchantments, etc. Lifening Elemental has a pretty cool and quite printable Splice ability. It could totally be a card. I expect it will be someday, or something quite like it. The actually creature itself is pretty bad as a 6-mana 4/6 with Lifelink, but it’s not the worst fail case.
I feel like this card is a solid design, drawing inspiration most heavily from the ‘Form of’ cards, like Form of the Dinosaur, Form of the Squirrel and stuff like Nine Lives. I don’t love those cards, myself, but they’re a neat little niche in Magic.
The idea with Liliana’s Other Contract is that when you die, you come back as a Zombie Planeswalker with 5 life, represented by your Loyalty. When the Planeswalker is defeated, whatever caused you to lose will likely reapply, and you’ll lose for real.
But it doesn’t have to. If you’re playing this card, you can get your life total back into the positive, or use Leeches to get rid of the Poison counters or whatever while you have it in play. Which is intentional, I guess? It could be made into a real card and is probably pretty fun to play too. I would try this out for sure.
Playtest is probably the only place where new Companions should be considered. I guess this is sort of like redemption for the original Lutri, who doesn’t fit in Commander. That’s okay, and Magic has a thing for Otters right now, which is also okay.
The abilities are fine. The cost is fine. Even the Companion restrictions seem reasonable, though all cards with no expansion symbols are legal and that includes Beta, Revised, 4th Edition and others. I don’t think I would have an issue with this in a casual game, honestly. But Companion is a problematic mechanic, and the errata helped but not enough. Hopefully this is never a real card. If they want to do a series of Acorn companions, I wouldn’t be opposed.
While I hate the idea of Legendary Artifact Planeswalkers, I have to admit that this is a cool design. I don’t think it’s that great, especially compared to some of the Equipment out there. The big payoff here is Double Strike, and I’d rather play Fireshrieker, honestly. Any opponent that can attack this, will, and it gets hosed by a lot of things that have ‘…and planeswalkers…’ on them.
But this could be done in a way that makes it a big time real chase card, and that’s how I expect we’ll see it. It will probably have to be a similar, singular weapon that’s critical to the narrative, so not too many like this. It could even be Luxior itself. This is playable enough, and fairly printable.
A land with Madness? Sign me up. I would totally play this. I think it’s playable and printable, and I hope they do it. Entering tapped is good, as is not having basic types. It keeps things casual.
Maestros’ Totally Safe Hideout
The name is derpy, but like the other lands on this list, this is quite playable and possibly good. I’d like to try this in Commander, and since so many decks can turn Sacrifice into upside, I’d expect success. There’s obviously no way to tell if this would be a cycle, or what kind of cycle. Maybe it would be all different effects that match the crime families, or maybe all like this. Any which way, the combo of Black/Blue/Red would love some ramp that fixes their mana, and this is ramp that fixes your mana.
If you know the card this is based on, you’ll probably know to avoid this one too. Chains of Mephistopheles is a notorious wall of text that often requires a judge to sort out what’s going on. I’m not going to do that here.
I don’t think this is going to be real. I don’t know who wants this. The original is sometimes played in Legacy/Vintage, and probably Commander to ruin friendships. It’s not really that hard to grasp, but like Banding, it remains an esoteric curiosity from the 90s that never panned out.
Turns out it was on the side of Lorthos’s head all along. That’s an anatomy joke for either the marine biologists or cryptozoologists to sneer at.
While it would be awkward, this card could easily be accomplished for real. Maybe with 3 kinds of counters or something, or if the card/players is allowed to remember if things happened in the game, rather than just during the current turn. Some of us have had to play with Checklist cards before, when there were only a few double-faced cards. This is printable.
As far as playable, this seems very good. Maybe too good. Lorthos, the Tidemaker is a strong creature, and for U, is a serious bargain. The conditions to get the token are easy, fun, and thematic. I could see this in a future Zendikar set. The only real question is why they didn’t focus more on the candy mint inspiration for Lorthos, Mentos, the Freshmaker.
Conspiracies can be cool, despite the fact that most of them are junk in practice. This one’s decent, with easy to meet conditions and a card-draw payoff. Just the one card though, which underwhelms. That’s my impression of the Conspiracy mechanic overall – underwhelms. No reason they can’t print this, but the whole system needs an overhaul.
It’s a struggle to say something good about a lot of Magic’s Auras, and this is no exception. It’s fun to be turtle? It’s all the crushing weight of a shell on your back but with none of the protection that usually gives you? Islandwalk is tough to stop without something like Mystic Decree or Gosta Dirk?
If you like slow effects, and need a weird Green payoff for your Stormtide Leviathan strategy, or you want to dodge a round of sorcery-speed removal… I don’t know. All you can do is try your best and come to the conclusion that you don’t have to play with every card. I’m moving on now, not a turn from now.
If this was a real card, and didn’t have that second ability, it would still be pretty playable. Surveil is great. Many Commander decks are happy to slowly mill themselves, and Surveil is a slightly better version of self-mill. Awesome.
The second ability raises a lot of questions, and makes this tough to print. Stuff like: can I reanimate the Germ? It says the effect ends if it leaves the graveyard, so does it just stay in play as the permanent, and is no longer a Germ? Or does it die immediately? Would I still get Enters and death triggers if I get it into play?
That last one seems likely, but I’m not sure about the rest. 0/0 opens the door for ‘state-based’ rules to apply, and that complicates matters. Overall, call a judge. Any which way, this seems like a strong card, and if they can get the effect all figured out, could be quite real. I quite like the potential here.
Of course this needs to be a card. It’s everything we wanted for Brothers Yamazaki, and should allow 2 of those cards in any deck where it is Commander. This should have a lot of demand, in part because you’ll need 2 copies.
This is playable, printable, and could easily be the showcase Commander(s) for a special Secret Lair precon for Mother’s Day some year. Sentimental, and consumerist. Watch out for that pie, it’s full of FOMO.
This is too good to print. You can essentially use this 4 times before there’s any downside. It would probably be the best Mox of all time, honestly.
I would not be surprised, however, to see this with text like on Command Tower, where it only produces colours in your Commander’s identity, but manages to be the primary chase card in a Commander set, like Jeweled Lotus. Yuck.
Was this supposed to be a Green card? I think it was supposed to be a Green card. Like the card it calls back to, a Green card, this is pretty straightforward.
Having no abilities is actually a really cool unifier. Or else it would be if there was more than just Muraganda Petroglyphs, Jasmine Boreal of the Seven and a bunch of vanilla creatures to work with. The Petroglyphs buff opposing vanillas, too, which isn’t great.
Making creatures with no abilities good is tough these days, as even above-rate stats might not matter against great removal or combos. Muraganda Eldrazi is a good step towards solving that issue, but it will take a lot more before that archetype is at all playable. Cool card, though, and extremely playable in plenty of places, not just determined vanilla. Somewhat printable, but ‘Deworded’ is not going to make the final cut for sure.
Wrap-Up
What another wacky bunch of cards! And still some that seem pretty reasonable. We’ll pick up next time with Playtest cards beginning with the Letter N!
Thanks for reading!
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